A Knight in Shining Armour
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Tony's thinks about what Steve said to his face about being a hero, and how Iron Man only did things for himself, while he is chasing the nuclear missile which could reduce New York to ashes.


Disclaimer - I don't own the Avengers. This is my first Avenger story, and its all I own.

Enjoy, and please feel free to leave some feedback.

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A Knight in Shining Armour.

As he pushed his Iron Man suit towards its absolute speed limits as he chased after the nuclear missile someone had stupidly ordered to be fired at New York against the portal, Tony Stark truly wondered about how crazy life had become for not himself after he had finished speaking to Captain America, but for everyone while he monitored the sensory information displayed in a holographic format which had the secondary benefit of ensuring he didn't suffer from the effects of claustrophobia.

While he worked on pushing the suit past its limits while he kept watching on the suit's fault location systems - so far, it seemed to be working, but he trusted JARVIS, and while this model of suit was still untested, it still seemed to be working well despite not having been tested properly, he couldn't help but think while he guided the armoured suit after the missile that threatened to turn New York into a smoking hole. There was no doubt in his mind that it probably would not work as those morons who'd ordered the attack had hoped; the nuke was a tried and true anti-human weapon, and even if the initial blast didn't wipe life out first, the resulting radiation would.

Tony had seen photographs of the aftermath of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended the Second World War; those images were burnt into his mind, and as a result when he had taken over the family business of devising new methods of killing, Stark had always refused to even consider weaponising Arc energy.

Arc reactors were the means for humans to develop a sustainable civilisation since it didn't rely on toxic fuel sources, and he believed the nuclear bomb was more than enough, and he had always come down hard on any attempt to make it into a weapon.

But for the current mess…. even if the blast from the missile destroyed New York, which a positive certainty, and wiped out every last man, woman, and child some big shots in the government had already deemed 'expendable' which only outraged him even more, there were no guarantees the blast would affect the aliens, never mind their technology.

The idiots hadn't taken into account the possibility they aliens attacking the city might be _immune _to radioactivity, they might be capable of converting the energy much like Banner had when he had been exposed to gamma rays which made him become the Hulk. The idea of these aliens becoming their races' version of the Hulk filled him with fear, and he cursed his own government for not bothering to remember that part. But then again what happened to Banner had been buried under so much red tape, it shouldn't be surprising.

But that was nothing compared to Tony's worries about the Tesseract, and just thinking about that glowing blue box SHIELD had taken in order to devise a new means of deterrent against aliens attacking Earth made Tony very angry. While he could understand and even appreciate the logic behind SHIELD, and Fury's desire to keep everyone safe from aliens who had evolved to the point where they had access to more powerful weapons than anything produced on Earth at the current time, he just could not believe just how reckless SHIELD'S scientists had been, though how were they supposed to know their activities would attract the attention of Loki and his goons?

Tony honestly had no idea what would happen how the blast from the nuke would affect the Tesseract and the energy within it, which was being used to currently create a portal where the aliens would pour their armies onto Earth.

JARVIS had picked up the energy field protecting the Tesseract, who knew what would happen if the energies of the nuke's blast, and the power coming from the Arc reactor currently powering his building to set an example to the need and the benefits of having clean, safe energy powering everything, and the energy from the Tesseract itself.

Who was to say the force field wouldn't be strengthened by the blast? What if those short-sighted morons giving the order eventually saw the portal widening because of their stupid decision to nuke the city?

Tony could just picture the blast from the nuke channelling more energy into the Tesseract, causing it to grow larger and larger, allowing more of the aliens to come through, all at the expense of the city of New York. Tony had visited this city many times during his life and his career, and while there were downsides to the city, the history of the place, the culture, all of it would be lost because some pen pusher had written the place off.

Well, the good news was Natasha and Dr Selvig were working on trying to shut the portal down now Loki's influence over the astrophysicist had been severed so there had been no need for this.

In his suit, Tony sighed, and he wondered just how his life had become so complicated.

A few years ago, he had just been another of America's weapons designers, dreaming up new ways of blowing shit up, and patting himself complacently on the back when he was paid for another job well done, while he drove Pepper crazy with his womanising antics.

Only for that mess where he'd been captured by those thugs on Obadiah's orders, and suffering a critical injury to his heart so now, if he wanted to remain alive, he would need a power course in order to ensure the pieces of shrapnel which were still lodged in his chest didn't reach his heart.

A lot had changed for Tony during that time; while some people, like his old friend Rhodey and Pepper, might still see him as frivolous even after he'd returned, and made that announcement about leaving the weapons business, he had found a calling in his life, but his mind kept flashing to that argument he'd gotten into when he and the others had confronted Fury about what SHIELD was really up to with the Tesseract.

One minute they were talking about deterrents against aliens, the next he was being roped into the argument because of what his family's company had done over the years, and it was only just now Tony realised they were using him to make a point about how hypocritical he seemed to be about the idea of creating deterrents against an enemy, but he wished they hadn't. Tony… Tony had made wisecracks in the face of Thor's quiet indignation about the use the Tesseract, Banner's announcement the 'Avengers' was just a chemical mix creating a timebomb, only to be confronted by Captain America.

In his mind, Tony recalled that argument when Rogers had been only a foot away from him.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," the revived super-soldier had said with his eyes glinting with contempt when Tony had titled himself as a billionaire playboy philanthropist. "I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

Tony remembered his own retort, "I'd cut the wire."

"You may not be a hero," Rogers had later said, spitting at him with more contempt than before, "but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

He also remembered the anger he felt, anger directed not just towards Rogers, but also to himself because a lot of what Rogers had said to him was right.

He hadn't built the initial suit which he had used to escape from his captors to become a superhero. He had built it to escape, end of story, but even when he and JARVIS had spent days working on the precursor to what would become Iron Man's signature appearance, his mind had not been on heroics. Not really. He had instead wanted to destroy the weapons his company had made over the years which was being used against people they shouldn't be.

And when he had finally dealt with Obadiah who'd come after him, surprising him with the revelation he had organised the whole capture thing, he had still not been a hero.

Nor had he been a hero when Vanko had appeared with those whips that launched bolts of Arc energy, especially during that time where he had been scared of death since he'd discovered the palladium chips he was using were killing him, causing him to act like a jerk, along with the stress caused by Pepper walking out while she always spoke over him whenever he had tried to tell her what was going on in his life, Rhodes taking that suit of armour for the US military which had been the last thing he'd wanted to be given how his time as a prisoner had shown him the hell of having your own technology turned against you. That fight with Obadiah had taught him that, and he'd learnt his lesson. That was the reason why he had worked so hard to keep the Iron Man and Arc technology away from the US military.

Tony had angrily retaliated against Rogers, furious with the other man's arrogant belief that he was the only person there who was a hero, okay well he was but he was tired of the sanctimonious attitude. For years growing up, Tony had heard tall tales about Captain America, but he could not believe the real deal was so naive about the world. The asshole had grown up in World War Two! Hadn't that taught him anything about how the world worked, or did his parents coddle him, and tell him about all the joy in the world? Hadn't he realised Fury had something up his sleeve? In any case, Rogers was no more special than Tony; everything that made Rogers into Captain America came out from a chemistry set, what right did he have to say he was the only heroic person there?

And, _and, __**and **_Rogers had spent decades frozen in a block of ice.

What did he know about the world now since everything he had known was gone a long time ago, though realistically not all that much had changed? The world was still full of problems and contrary to whatever schoolboy dream Rogers may have had thought at the time that even if Hitler was killed and the war itself ended, nothing would change. All of the problems from before still existed. They weren't going to die just because Hitler was gone.

And now here he was, chasing after one of the nuclear missiles fired on the order of a government whose synaptic firework display could cause the people of New York everything. The missile was fired by people who looked for the quick and easy option without even thinking about what the potential consequences would be, and even if it blew up because he failed, something he didn't plan on doing if he could help it though he hoped the armour worked as well as the other suits he had, they _still wouldn't learn from their mistakes. _

Finally, he caught up with the missile and he grabbed hold of it and he spared himself a quick sigh of relief he'd caught it in time though he was a long way from really ending the threat. He had no trouble flying it towards where the portal opening was. When the missile was being designed, the manufacturers clearly hadn't imagined the possibility of someone wearing a cybernetic armour grabbing hold of their precious weapon, and flying it towards a different target. It was awkward flying with it, but Tony ignored the issue.

His mind was so focused on the getting the nuke to the portal that he jumped in his skin as he heard JARVIS ask a question while Pepper's smiling face appeared in holographic form. _"Sir, shall I try Miss Potts?"_

Tony paused for a second, wondering what he could say to her before he decided to just try his luck. "Might as well," he said finally, mentally wishing he could kiss JARVIS for the suggestion. The AI knew that there was a chance they'd both die on this suicide mission, but Tony desperately wanted to speak to somebody, and Pepper would be perfect. There were so many things he would love dearly to say to her, and this might be the final chance he would get.

The call rang out for a good few minutes, but Pepper was not picking up. Tony closed his eyes for a moment, feeling what was left of his heart ache as he realised Pepper was not picking up but he didn't have the heart, or the desire, to tell his AI assistant to cut the call. She might pick up in a moment from now, and he would probably have no fewer than a second or two to tell her how he truly felt about her…

As he approached the Stark tower where the portal was being generated, he angled himself upwards with JARVIS activating the torso repulsers to assist while he missed the last few floors of the tower by only a few feet, or inches. He couldn't be sure, but he pushed that aside as he travelled up the pillar of blue energy which was opening the portal and keeping it propped up (the scientist in Tony wondered just what kind of properties that energy contained; he had heard for years the only way to maintain and keep a wormhole open and stable was to use exotic matter to do the job, but he wondered if that was true now since the portal was quite wide as it was, and just as he was wondering if perhaps the portal used a different property of space that was currently unknown to human science he pushed it aside - he was almost there), ignored by the few aliens that were still coming through the portals' other end before he passed through the threshold. Did they not see him as a threat? Did they even have intelligence at all? Whatever the reason was, Tony was not going to stop what he was trying to do.

He found himself in the blackness of…space? Some other dimension? He didn't know, all he knew was the suit suddenly lost power and he lost virtually all sensor information so he couldn't work it out, and the last thing he saw before he blanked out was Pepper's face fading away with the sign reading CALL FAILED as he was no longer in range of Earth even through the portal. _Huh!, _he thought to himself, _Wasn't expecting that. _

Suddenly he felt breathless - the suit was designed to be self-contained, but only if he gave word to JARVIS to prepare it, although he had never really tried it as a spacesuit before.

When blackness took his vision and he felt his arms slack around the missile, his last thought was _I might not be a conventional hero, but I'm glad I saved the people of New York. And if I die, its not so bad, so long as if do one good deed._


End file.
